New report compares military and climate spending

The Institute for Policy Studies has a new Foreign Policy in Focus report out: "The Budget Compared: Military vs. Climate Security." As you’d expect from the name, it’s a close look at how federal dollars are allocated for military vs. climate protection, and as you’d expect from, you know, being awake, there’s an enormous disparity. It’s pretty astonishing nonetheless. Here are the reports major findings:

• FINDING: For every dollar allocated for stabilizing the climate, the government will spend $88 on achieving security by military force.

• FINDING: The government is allocating 99% of combined federal spending on military and climate security to military security.

• FINDING: During the last five years the ratio of military security to climate security spending has averaged 97 to 1.

• FINDING: In FY 2008, as well as during the past five years, the government has allocated for climate security only one percent of what it has devoted to military security.

• FINDING: The U.S. government budgeted $20 to develop new weapons systems for every dollar it requested to develop new technologies to stabilize the climate.

• FINDING: We will devote 50 times as much to arming the rest of the world as to helping it prepare for and avoid global climate catastrophe.

• FINDING: The government allocates just 2% of the international assistance budget for both military and climate security to stabilizing climate.

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